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Former energy minister Brad Duguid’s office was so concerned about political fallout from building a power plant near Sherway Gardens that it prepared a confidential dossier on how local Liberal MPPs were fighting it.

The document was among more than 3,000 pages of emails released Tuesday, mainly from Duguid’s one-time chief of staff, Craig McLennan, as a legislative committee delves deeper into the controversial plant cancellation days before the provincial election on Oct. 6, 2011.

The June 2011 dossier was unexpectedly found on a backup server two weeks ago after McLennan testified to the committee that he had deleted his emails.

The two-page memo noted how Etobicoke Centre MPP Donna Cansfield would support nothing less than “outright cancellation” of the plant, how recently retired Etobicoke—Lakeshore MPP and cabinet minister Laurel Broten opposed the plant but “will not come out publicly against its construction” and suggested neighbouring MPP Charles Sousa, now finance minister, rode a fine line in Mississauga South.

Sousa was “not of the mind the plant will, in fact, have any significant impact on the community from a safety or environmental standpoint,” the two-page memo found, but was “concerned about the political fallout over the plant’s construction.”

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Scrapping the Mississauga plant and a similar one in Oakville a year earlier amid community opposition have cost taxpayers at least $585 million.

Progressive Conservative energy critic Vic Fedeli charged the Liberal government was “covering up” the emails to prevent more political fallout with five byelections to be held Aug. 1.

Researchers for the Conservatives and New Democrats were poring through the documents looking for emails, memos or other documents from McLennan, Duguid and another former energy minister, Chris Bentley, that suggest the Liberal government knew the cost of cancelling the two plants was more than the $230 million that top-ranking officials originally stated after the 2011 election.

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